Spring is in the air and farmers across the country are welcoming new arrivals into the barnyard. Cinema Paradiso is full of the joys of the season and invites users to gambol along with some of the many delightful films focusing on farm animals.
The best place to start any barnyard round-up is John Halas and Joy Bachelor's potent adaptation of George Orwell's Animal Farm (1954), which was Britain's first commercially released animated feature. Partially funded by the CIA, this account of how Mr Jones is evicted from Manor Farm and replaced by an authoritarian animal cabal was designed to expose the failings of the Soviet Union's Communist system at the height of the Cold War. It certainly makes no bones about making Napoleon the Berkshire boar and his sidekick, Squealer, as detestable as possible, as they marginalise the more pragmatic Snowball and goad the ducks, hens and sheep into informing on one another, in spite of the warnings of Boxer the carthorse and his donkey friend, Benjamin.
Maurice Denham did all the voices in this landmark production. But an all-star cast contributed to John Stephenson's 1999 TV-movie remake. This live-action Animal Farm was criticised for tinkering with Orwell's original ending. But it also boasts superb animatronics from the Jim Henson Creature Shop and such vocal talents as Patrick Stewart (Napoleon), Ian Holm (Squealer), Peter Ustinov (Old Major), Kelsey Grammer (Snowball), Paul Scofield (Boxer), Pete Postlethwaite (Benjamin) and Julia Louis-Dreyfus (Mollie the mare). However, the majority of cinematic fables have followed Aesop's example in teaching universal truths rather than giving the floor to political animals.
All Sty and No Substance
One of the earliest moving pigtures was Pathé's Le Cochon Danseur (1907), which captured a popular music-hall act in which a well-dressed pig attempts to flirt with a pretty girl and is stripped naked and forced to dance for his audacity. Over a century after its first appearance, this four-minute short became a widely circulated meme, although many people found it more disturbing than amusing. Perhaps we had better stick to a pirouetting Pigling Bland in Reginald Mills's Tales of Beatrix Potter (1971), which also features such beloved characters as Jemima Puddle-Duck, as well as Peter Rabbit, Mr Jeremy Fisher, Mrs Tiggy-Winkle and Squirrel Nutkin in a Royal Ballet production choreographed by Frederick Ashton to the music of John Lanchbery.
The tale of Aunt Pettitoes's son is also retold in The Tale of Pigling Bland and Other Stories (1993) and The Beatrix Potter Collection (1995), while Ewen Leslie provides his voice in Will Gluck's Peter Rabbit (2018), alongside James Corden as the carrot-loving bunny and Rose Byrne as Jemima Puddle-Duck, who are set to reunite in the same director's Peter Rabbit 2: The Runaway (2020).
Made for Walt Disney's Silly Symphonies series, Burt Gillett's The Three Little Pigs (1933) enhanced its retelling of the traditional fairytale with Frank Churchill's catchy tune, 'Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?', and walked off with the Oscar for Best Animated Short. Such was its popularity that the cartoon spawned three sequels, The Big Bad Wolf (1934), Three Little Wolves (1936) and The Practical Pig (1939), which can all be found on Walt Disney Treasures: Silly Symphonies (2001), along with such other farm-related favourites as Farmyard Symphony (1938) and The Ugly Duckling (1939).
Seeking to create their own porcine character for the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies series, Warner Bros. introduced Porky Pig in Friz Freleng's I Haven't Got a Hat (1935). This stutteringly charming piggy was initially voiced by Joe Dougherty before the peerless Mel Blanc took over in 1937. In all, Porky appeared in 153 cartoons during Warners' heyday and his famous sign off line, 'Th-th-th-that's all folks!', can be heard in several of the cartoons chosen for such compilations as Porky Pig, Best of Warner Bros: 50 Cartoon Collection: Looney Tunes, and Looney Tunes: All Stars, Volumes 1 and 2, as well as Joe Pytka's Space Jam (1996) and Joe Dante's roistering meld of animation and live-action, Looney Tunes: Back in Action (2003).
Produced by the celebrated animation duo of William Hanna and Joseph Barbera, Charles A. Nichols's Charlotte's Web (1973) dots its retelling of EB White's timeless children's book with charming songs by Robert B. and Richard M. Sherman. The story of how a spider named Charlotte A. Cavatica saves the bacon of Wilbur the pig so touched audiences that it spawned a sequel, Mario Piluso's Charlotte's Web 2: Wilbur's Great Adventure (2003), which sees Wilbur and Templeton the rat join with Charlotte's daughters, Nellie, Aranea and Joy, to welcome Cardigan the lamb to Zuckerman's farm.
There has also been a live-animation hybrid version, with Julia Roberts taking over from Debbie Reynolds in the vocal lead of Gary Winick's Charlotte's Web (2006), which also features Robert Redford as Ike the Horse, Steve Buscemi as Templeton, John Cleese as Samuel the Sheep, Kathy Bates as Bitsy the Cow and Oprah Winfrey as Gussy the Goose. Without question, however, the most adorable movie ever made about a pig is George Miller's Babe (1995), which was adapted from Dick King-Smith's 1983 children's classic, The Sheep-Pig. While this inspired blend of live-action and animatronics was largely confined to Farmer Arthur Hoggett's property, the sequel, Babe: Pig in the City (1996), saw the porcine hero head to Metropolis to save the farm by winning a sheep herding competition with a large cash prize. However, Babe and Mrs Esme Hoggett had not taken into account the machinations of clown Fugly Floom.
Events also overtake a young piglet in Mark Lewis's Gordy (1995), as his entire family is transported away from Meadow Brook Farm in Arkansas during the course of a single day. But Gordy (voiced by Justin Garms) is determined to keep a promise to his father to look after his mother and siblings and hits the road with country singer Jinnie Sue McAllister (Kristy Young) and her father, Luke (Doug Stone), in order to save the day. Stardom comes naturally to the long-tressed doyenne of 'Pigs in Space' in The Muppet Show (1976-81) and Miss Piggy has graced all of their gang's subsequent big-screen adventures including James Frawley's The Muppet Movie (1979), Frank Oz's The Muppets Take Manhattan (1984), Brian Henson's Muppet Treasure Island (1996), and James Bobin's The Muppets (2011) among others.
A pig with oracular powers proves crucial to the action of another Disney animation, Ted Berman and Richard Rich's The Black Cauldron (1985), which sees pig-keeper Taran (Grant Bardsley) have to leave the small farm of Caer Dallben in the land of Prydain to rescue Hen Wen after she is kidnapped by the flying Gwythaints to help the Horned King (John Hurt) find a mystical relic that can boost his power. Putting an unusual spin on the talking porker format are Hayao Miyazaki's Porco Rosso (1992) and Eric Fleming's My Brother the Pig (1999). Produced by anime masters Studio Ghibli (who would also find room for more porcine characters in Miyazaki's Spirited Away, 2001), the former is set in the Adriatic in the 1920s and centres on Marco Pagot, a Great War pilot who is turned into a pig and devotes himself to combatting the fascistic pirates seeking to take control of the skies. The latter is a juvenile road movie, in which Scarlett Johansson has to try to prevent a cleaver-wielding butcher from catching up with her irksome sibling, Nick Fuoco, after he is accidentally transformed by some magic stones belonging to Mexican nanny Eva Mendes.
Back in the real world, Homer Simpson develops a close bond with Plopper, the porker he rescues from the filming of a Krusty Burger commercial in downtown Springfield. Indeed, he even makes up the hilarious 'Spider-Pig Song', as he holds Plopper upside down to walk across the ceiling in David Silverman's The Simpsons Movie (2007). Among the other passing pigs, you might want to seek out are Hamm (John Ratzenberger) in Toy Story franchise, and Tattoo (Michael Beattie), a slow-witted pig who follows Snowball the white rabbit (Kevin Hart), the leader of the so-called 'Flushed Pets', in Chris Renaud and Yarrow Cheney's The Secret Life of Pets (2016).
Things are far from hunky-dory on Bird Island when a pair of green pigs named Leonard and Ross land in a boat and start telling porkies that make Red suspicious about their intentions in Clay Kaytis and Fergal Reilly's The Angry Birds Movie (2016). Despite a showdown with King Mudbeard in his walled city, the rivalry continues in Thurop Van Orman and John Rice's The Angry Birds Movie 2 (2019). However, the threat posed by the occupants of the ice-covered Eagle Island leads Red and his sidekicks Chuck and Bomb to forge an alliance with the piggies to counter the threat posed by Zeta the purple peril.
Older users will remember the monochrome images of a pair of pig puppets who found fame in the Swinging Sixties. Indeed, they even managed a guest slot on the most prestigious TV show of the time, Sunday Night At the London Palladium (1960-66). Why not see what Pinky and Perky have been up to more recently in License to Swill (2008) ? Failing that, you could also try the BBC's live-action series, Big Barn Farm (2008-13), which introduced younger viewers to Dash the donkey, Gobo the goat, Madame Moo Moo, Ewenice the sheep, Lester the Rooster, the Mrs Chickens and Petra the piglet. Based on the books by Mick Inkpen, the stories contained in Kipper: Classic Collection and Kipper: Treasured Tales (both 1999) often feature Pig, the eponymous pooch's chocolate cake-eating second best friend. And there are literally dozens of Peppa Pig titles available. If you don't believe us, just type her name into the search line and count them for yourself.
As one might expect of a PG Wodehouse scenario, much depends on Beach the butler (Mark Williams) in the BBC series, Blandings (2013-14), as Clarence, Lord Emsworth (Timothy Spall) is too preoccupied with his prize pig, The Empress of Blandings, to bother helping sister Lady Constance (Jennifer Saunders) keep chaos at bay.
Charting a unique experiment in sustainability John Chester's The Biggest Little Farm (2018) focuses on all aspects of life at Apricot Lane Farm. But owners John and Molly Chester and their eco-guru Alan York are roundly upstaged by a camera-hogging pig named Emma and her unlikely best friend, Greasy the rooster. That said, a badling of ducks also have their moment in the spotlight, when they are let loose in the orchard to solve a snail problem.
Moos of the World
Among the earliest films with a farm theme is James H. White's The Milker's Mishap (1897), which was made for inventor Thomas Alva Edison's film company and records a fracas that breaks out after a man milking a Holstein cow blames the other farmhands when the creature kicks over the brimming milk pail.
Walt Disney and his creative partner Ub Iwerks created Clarabelle Cow in 1928 and she played one of Minnie Mouse's best friends in a number of cartoon shorts. She also got to cameo in Robert Zemeckis's Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988) and Phil Johnston's Ralph Breaks the Internet (2018). Future Disney animator Burt Gillett created Molly Moo-Cow for the Van Beuren Studios in 1935, but she only featured in a clutch of cartoons, unlike Ermintrude the hat-wearing, daisy-twiddling cow, who became a fixture on the children's teatime favourite, The Magic Roundabout (1964-90). She also put in appearances in Serge Danot's Dougal and the Blue Cat (1970) and Dave Borthwick's digital reboot, The Magic Roundabout (2005), which spawned such spin-offs as Dougal's Darling and Treasure Beyond Measure (both 2007).
As the silent era drew to a close, Lya Lys sees a large cow wander into her room and make itself comfortable on her bed in Luis Buñuel's L'Age d'Or (1930). In another arthouse masterpiece, the Gupta family depend on Lalu the cow in Satyajit Ray's Pather Panchali (1955), while the dedication of a cow proves the starting point for 77 year-old Lalit Behl's pilgrimage to Varanasi in Shubhashish Bhutiani's Hotel Salvation (2016).
The cattle drive became a staple of the Hollywood Western, with John Wayne and Montgomery Clift memorably recreating the first crossing of the Chisholm Trail in Howard Hawks's Red River (1948), while the battle for the water supply known as the Big Muddy drives a wedge between the Terrills and the Hannassey's in William Wyler's The Big Country (1956).
Moving Down Under, Chips Rafferty is forced to move his herd across Northern Australia to prevent it from potentially falling into Japanese hands in Harry Watt's classic Bush Western, The Overlanders (1946), while Nicole Kidman learned how to round-up cattle to play Lady Ashley, who needs the help of Drover (Hugh Jackman) to keep her livestock out of the clutches of an avaricious rival in Baz Luhrmann's epic, Australia (2008).
The debuting Julio Medem won the Goya for Best New Director for Cows (1992), which stops off at various points between 1875 and 1936 to chronicle key incidents in the feud between the Mendiluze and Iriguíbel families from the rural village of Guipúzcoa in the Basque country. A bovine vision brings a touch of surrealism to some equally uncompromising drama, as Vinz (Vincent Cassell) claims to have seen a cow in the middle of the riot that breaks out in Mathieu Kassovitz's banlieue drama, La Haine (1995), but he isn't sure whether or not he was hallucinating.
A milking lesson is one of the first tasks facing hairdresser Prue (Anna Friel), Cambridge graduate Ag (Rachel Weisz) and naval wife-in-waiting Stella (Catherine McCormack) when they arrive in wartime Dorset in David Leland's The Land Girls (1998), which was clearly the inspiration for the BBC series, Land Girls (2009-11), which brings Nancy (Summer Strallen), Joyce (Becki Gemmell), Bea (Jo Woodcock) and Annie (Christine Bottomley) to the Hoxley estate to do their bit for King and Country. Farmer John Mills may live in a pigsty, but he makes good money by wheeling and dealing at the local cattle market in Frank Nesbit's Dulcima (1971). However, when housekeeper Carol White discovers his stash of cash, she realises that she might be able to make more of her life than marrying the increasingly besotted Mills.
The trials and tribulations of a country vet are experienced in all their mucky glory by Simon Ward, as he joins Anthony Hopkins's practice in Claude Whatham's All Creatures Great and Small (1975), which was adapted from James Herriot's autobiographical bestsellers If Only They Could Talk and It Shouldn't Happen to a Vet. Christopher Timothy and Robert Hardy took over the roles of Herriot and Siegfried Farnon in the BBC series, All Creatures Great and Small (1978-90). The fictional Yorkshire town of Oxley provides the setting for The Chase (2006-07), which centres on vet sisters, Nicola Stephenson and Gaynor Faye. Much less fanciful than its predecessor, this BBC series still feels cosy by comparison with Hope Dickson Leech's harrowing drama, The Levelling (2016), which sees vet Ellie Kendrick return to the family farm on the Somerset Levels for the first time since her brother's suicide to discover that father David Troughton's herd has contracted bovine tuberculosis.
Looking more on the bright side, there are lots of friendly faces on show in Roy Wilson's Annabelle's Wish (1997), which takes place on a farm in Twobridge, Tennessee and sees the animals on Grandpa Charles's farm get the Christmas gift of speech and persuade Santa to let a calf named Annabelle help him out when he needs an extra reindeer. Disney directors Will Finn and John Sanford take us back to 1889 for Home on the Range (2004 film), which follows a cow named Maggie (Roseanne Barr) after she moves from the Dixon Ranch to a small farm called Patch of Heaven after Alameda Slim (Randy Quaid) steals the entire herd. He's also got his sights on Maggie's new home, but she has other ideas and joins forces with the ditzy Grace (Jennifer Tilly) and the prim Mrs Calloway (Judi Dench) to capture the dastardly cattle rustler and earn the $750 reward that farmer Pearl (Carol Cook) needs to save her property.
The brains behind Steve Oedekerk's Barnyard (2006) don't appear to be all that familiar with bovine anatomy, as the hero of this animated saga is a male dairy cow named Otis (Kevin James). He's a bit of a party animal and likes nothing more than walking upright on his hind legs when the farmer and his family aren't around. But, when the leader of the herd, Ben (Sam Elliott), is killed by Dag the coyote, Otis has to grow up fast and seeks help from Pig the pig, Peck the rooster, Miles the mule, Etta the hen and the cows, Daisy and Bessy, to protect the farmyard from the cunning predators.
Following in the pawprints of Ash Brannon's Rock Dog (2016), Lise I. Osvoll's Cattle Hill (2018) centres on a teenage calf called Klara, who leaves her mother at a city milkshake bar to stay on her father Biff's farm in the countryside. He used to be a rock star and Klara dreams of finding fame. But her mind turns to baking apple pies when Pauline the pig informs Biff that he has to make 100 by the end of the week or face eviction. Chickolina the hen and Gavin the goat do their bit to help. However, the pies keep vanishing and Fobetron the scarecrow looks suspiciously well-fed.
Birds of a Feather
Since his first appearance in Wilfred Jackson's Silly Symphony, The Wise Little Hen (1934), Donald Duck has been the world's favourite anatine character - cartoon or otherwise. Of course, the folks over at Warner Bros might put up a case for Daffy Duck (who has his own collection of 14 films, which is not unreasonably entitled, Daffy Duck), while Donald has competition close to home in the form of girlfriend Daisy Duck, Uncle Scrooge McDuck and nephews Huey, Dewey and Louie. The latter quartet can be seen in spin-off items like Bob Hathcock's DuckTales: Treasure of the Lost Lamp (1990). But, with his blue sailor's suit barely covering his modesty, the irascible Donald has reigned supreme. Voiced by Clarence Nash (and since 1985 by Tony Anselmo), he appeared in over 150 shorts and the best can be found on such compilations as Walt Disney Treasures: The Chronological Donald and Everybody Loves Donald.
The most (in) famous scene in Werner Herzog's Stroszek (1977) features a chicken dancing on a revolving plate to the music of a mini-jukebox in the amusement parlour finale. Symbolising the futility of life, this was the last image that Joy Division frontman Ian Curtis reputedly watched before taking his own life and the clip recurs in both Michael Winterbottom's 24 Hour Party People (2002) and Anton Corbijn's Control (2007).
Having watched its companions being slain and plucked for the pot, a scrawny chicken decides to beat a hasty retreat through the steepling streets of the Cidade de Deus favela in the opening sequence of Fernando Meirelles and Katia Lund's Oscar-nominated City of God (2002), which culminates after a fast-cut chase by an armed gang in a Brazilian stand-off and a flashback.
Sylvester Stallone gets to feel 'like a Kentucky fried idiot' after Rocky Balboa chases a chicken as part of his training regime in the self-directed boxing sequel, Rocky II (1979). Despite boasting George Lucas as executive producer, Willard Huyck's Howard the Duck (1986) is one of the most notorious turkeys of the blockbuster era. But it still makes for grimly fascinating viewing, as it follows the eponymous anti-hero after he is swept from his own planet of Duckworld and lands in Cleveland, Ohio, where he encounters such humans as Beverly Switzer (Lea Thompson) and scientist Phil Blumburtt (Tim Robbins) in his bid to vanquish the Dark Overlords of the Universe and return home.
Having run out of ammunition in his Rambo-like bid to rescue some hostages in Iraq, Topper Harley (Charlie Sheen) grabs a handy chicken, loads it into his bow and fires at an enemy soldier in Jim Abrahams's Hot Shots! Part Deux (1993). The (animated) look on the poor bird's face as it flies towards its target wrings a guilty giggle, but it's surpassed by the fact that the bird proceeds to lay an egg after felling its target. There is more projectile poultry on show in Michel Hazanavicius's OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies (2006), as superspy Hubert Bonisseur de la Bath (Jean Dujardin) goes undercover as the head of an Egyptian chicken plant and finds himself being bombarded by birds by an enemy agent in a cluckingly funny bit of old-fashioned slapstick.
Regular watchers of Family Guy (1999-) will know that Peter Griffen periodically has epic punch-ups with Ernie the Giant Chicken. However, Woody Allen beat Seth MacFarlane to the punch, as Miles Monroe (Allen) emerges from a 200-year kip and sees a man walking along with an eight-foot chicken on a lead in Sleeper (1973).
Twelve years after Ian Holm beat a transport strike by walking 500 East Anglian geese to Smithfield Market in London in Richard Eyre's Laughterhouse (aka Singleton's Pluck, 1984), 13 year-old Anna Paquin takes to the skies in a microlight to help a flock of Canada Geese migrate south for the winter in Carroll Ballard's exquisite family favourite, Fly Away Home (1996), which earned Caleb Deschanel an Oscar nomination for his wondrous photography.
A Chinese goose named Peng injures himself during his flight south and finds himself being helped along the way to Pleasant Valley by a pair of demanding ducklings called Chi and Chao in Christopher Jenkins's Duck Duck Goose (2018). Another duck who means well features in Stephen Gaghan's Dolittle (2020), with Dr John Dolittle (Robert Downey, Jr.) lavishing affection on his energetic pet, Dab-Dab (Octavia Spencer), who waddle-hobbles along on a metal leg.
Having used the story of Chicken Licken for Clyde Geronimi's 1943 wartime cartoon about spreading panic, Disney returned to the fable for Mark Dindal's Chicken Little (2005), which sees our feathered hero ostracised by the residents of Oakey Oaks for claiming that the sky was falling on his head. Created by Robert McKimson for Walky Talky Hawky (1946), larger than life Southern-accented rooster Foghorn Leghorn featured in 28 further Warner cartoons over the next 18 years. But he has also guested in such latterday Looney Tune pictures as Jeff Siergey's Rabbits Run (2015). Animator Don Bluth and fellow directors Gary Goldman and Dan Kuenster drew inspiration from Edmond Rostand's 1910 verse play, Chanticleer, for Rock-a-Doodle (1991), in which a small boy named Edmond (Tony Scott Ganger) is turned into a kitten by the Grand Duke of the Owls (Christopher Plummer). But the cat-boy knows from his favourite storybook that the fate of his family farm depends on Chanticleer (Glen Campbell), a rooster who has been hiding away since he was humiliated after forgetting to crow before the sun rose over his own barnyard.
There are rumblings in the poultry shed in Peter Lord and Nick Park's Chicken Run (2001) because Mrs Tweedy (Miranda Richardson) has imprisoned the birds to improve productivity. But, just as Ginger (Julia Sawalha), Babs (Jane Horrocks) and the other chickens begin to despair of ever escaping captivity, Rocky the American Rooster (Mel Gibson) flies in to deliver them. Bestselling children's writer Maurice Sendak served as producer on Raymond Jafelice's The Little Bear Movie (2006), which sees the eponymous hero enlist the help of his friends Hen, Duck, Owl and Cat to find the missing parents of a lonely baby bear named Cub.
The emphasis in Ash Brannon and Chris Buck's Surf's Up (2007) is firmly on Cody (Shia LaBeouf), the Rockhopper penguin who leaves Shiverpool, Antarctica to compete in the Big Z Memorial Surf Off. But he's not alone for long, as he makes friends with the slow-witted Chicken Joe (Jon Heder), Lani the lifeguard (Zooey Deschanel) and The Geek (Jeff Bridges), a washed-up beach bum who offers to teach Cody the real meaning of winning. It may be set in Africa's Okavango Delta and centre on the search for water led by Billy the meerkat and Socrates the lion, but Reinhard Klooss and Holger Tappe's Animals United (2010) does find room for a French cockerel named Charles, who is voiced by Andy Serkis.
Reggie (Owen Wilson) is feeling good about life, as he has been chosen as the turkey to receive a presidential pardon on Thanksgiving. But just as he is breathing a sigh of relief, he is swept back to the first Thanksgiving by Jake (Woody Harrelson), the leader of the Turkey Freedom Front in Jimmy Hayward's time-travelling animated comedy, Free Birds (2013), who is determined to see that turkey stays off the menu for good. The animation isn't of the same calibre, but the message is pretty much the same in Sylvain Viau's The Great Turkey Rescue (2011), as Walter and Tandoori strive to prevent the sleepy village of Hart's Landing from falling into the hands of a greedy tycoon in the days before Christmas.
Produced in Mexico, Gabriel and Rodolfo Riva-Palacio Alatriste's Huevos: Little Rooster's Egg-cellent Adventure (2015) tells the tale of Toto, a timid creature who discovers his inner-hero when his farm is threatened with closure and the only way he can make the money needed to pay the debt is to fight the champion boxing rooster, Bankivoide. And we stay in cartoonland for the popular ITV series Count Duckula (1988-93), a spin-off of Brian Cosgrave and Mark Hall's Danger Mouse (1981-92). David Jason not only provided the Count's voice in 65 episodes, but he also graced such feature sidebars as Chris Randall's The Vampire Strikes Back and Vampire Vacation (both 1988) and Robert Cullen's Danger Mouse: From Duck to Dawn (2016).
Herd It All Before
An element of Anna Sewell's 1877 novel Black Beauty informs Robert Bresson's Au Hasard Balthazar (1966), as a Pyrenean donkey is passed from owner to owner after he is separated from Marie (Anne Wiazemsky). Accepting the slings and arrows with patience and dignity, Balthazar finds peace surrounded by sheep in a closing shot that is as humbling as it is poignant. This fable would make for an irresistible Gallic double bill with Jacques Demy's Donkey Skin (1970), which retells the Charles Perrault fairytale about a king (Jean Marais) who considers marrying his own daughter (Catherine Deneuve) after promising his dying queen that he would only wed someone who surpasses her beauty. Aided by the Lilac Fairy (Delphine Seyrig), however, the princess escapes the palace in the skin of her father's favourite donkey and takes a job as a humble pig keeper in a neighbouring kingdom.
Adding to the intrigue of this Gallic pairing is the fact that Jean-Luc Godard (who was married to Anne Wiazemsky) includes a shot of a donkey and a llama beside a petrol station in Film Socialisme (2010). There is also a scene of Jesus entering Jerusalem aboard a donkey on the first Palm Sunday in Pier Paolo Pasolini's The Gospel According to St Matthew (1964) and the lovesick donkey who stands on a railway line and changes the entire complexion of the story in Emir Kusturica's Life Is a Miracle (2004).
During his time at Disney, Don Bluth drew on a Charles Tazewell story to put a new spin on the telling of the First Christmas in The Small One (1978), which can be found on the 1990 Countdown to Christmas compilation. A donkey named Bo, Ruth the sheep and Dave the dove similarly find themselves at the centre of the Nativity story after they leave their dreary lives in a distant village in Timothy Reckart's animated adventure, The Star (2017).
Younger viewers will also warm to the characters in Dawdle the Donkey (1996-2004), which follows Dawdle (Josie Lawrence) after she hits the road after houses are built on the orchard where she used to live and she makes new friends along the way, including Rola Polar Bear (David Jason) and Archie the Cat (Andy Turvey). And, of course, there is Donkey, the wise-ass voiced by Eddie Murphy opposite Mike Myers in Andrew Adamson and Vicky Jenson's masterly revisionist fairytale, Shrek (2001), and its sequels, Shrek 2 (Conrad Vernon, Kelly Asbury and Andrew Adamson, 2004), Shrek the Third (Chris Miller and Raman Hui, 2007) and Shrek Forever After (Mike Mitchell, 2010).
There are scene-stealing goats in just about every film adaptation of Johanna Spyri's Heidi (and Cinema Paradiso has plenty of them). But the sight of Shirley Temple being butted while bending over in the village square in Allan Dwan's 1937 version has gone down in screen history. Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton and Laurel and Hardy (see Laurel and Hardy: Vol.20: More Brushes With the Law) all had close encounters of the caprine kind. Yet, perhaps the funniest moment involving a goat comes in Pedr James's BBC take on Willy Russell's Our Day Out (1978), which involves the search of a coach after the students of a Liverpool school visit a Welsh petting zoo.
While searching the hills of Provence for a lost goat in Claude Berri's adaptation of Marcel Pagnol's Manon des Sources, herder Manon (Emmanuelle Béart) makes a crucial discovery that changes her family's fortunes. But it's the Vercors plateau that provides the background to Christian Carion's The Girl From Paris (2000) as Sandrine (Mathilde Seigner) quits her IT job in a Parisian office and purchases the land of retiring farmer Adrien (Michel Serrault). However, when Sandrine starts to make changes, such as making her own goats' cheese, Adrien is convinced that he has made a terrible mistake.
Catherine Corsini's Summertime (2015) is a lesbian romance that shows how city girl Carole (Cécile De France) begins to feel at home on the dairy farm where Delphine (Izïa Higelin) has lived her entire life. Completing this brief survey of Gallic agri-cinema is Raymond Depardon's documentary, Modern Life (2008), which examines the problems facing ageing farmers in southern France.
There are more goats and sheep than you can shake a stick at in Sergei Dvortsevoy's Tulpan (2008), a tale of the Kazakh steppe that follows Asa (Askhat Kuchencherekov), as he returns home after service in the Russian navy to discover that he has to marry before he can become a shepherd. Unfortunately, his chosen bride thinks his ears are too big, but life has taught Asa never to give up. While they might feature in the titles of Grant Heslov's The Men Who Stare At Goats (2009) and Christopher Neil's Goats (2012), the animals essentially only have walk-on roles, as respective humans George Clooney and David Duchovny try to keep up with the herd.
Wool Meet Again
Mary Kate Danaher (Maureen O'Hara) is first seen herding sheep in John Ford's Best Picture-winning paean to his Irish forebears, The Quiet Man (1952). However, the flame-haired sister of squire Will Danaher (Victor McLaglen) winds up being dragged through the pasture dung by Pittsburgh-born Sean Thornton (John Wayne) when his visit to the land of his fathers starts to turn sour. Doris Day had famously been out West before in David Butler's Calamity Jane (1953), but she failed to emulate that success by heading to Arapaho, Wyoming to run a sheep farm in cattle country in Andrew V. McLaglen's The Ballad of Josie (1967). Acquitted of murdering her drunken husband, Day is regarded as a pariah by George Kennedy and his fellow ranchers. But she restores her dilapidated farm and begins to make go of tending her flock with the help of decent cowboy, Peter Graves.
Although they're late to the party in Luis Buñuel's The Exterminating Angel (1962), the sheep make quite an impression. Along with a bear, they had been ordered by the host of a lavish dinner party in Mexico City. But, when the guests become locked in the dining-room, the sheep wander off into the nearby church. Sheep flock into another place of worship during the burial sequence in The Colour of Pomegranates (1969), Sergei Paradjanov's visually mesmerising rumination on the life of 18th-century Armenian poet, Sayat Nova.
Viewers will need strong stomachs to watch the puncturing sequence in John Schlesinger's adaptation of Thomas Hardy's Far From the Madding Crowd (1967), which sees shepherd Gabriel Oak (Alan Bates) having to take drastic measures to reduce the bloating of the sheep belonging to Wessex farm owner Bathsheba Everdene (Julie Christie), who has also caught the eye of neighbour William Boldwood (Peter Finch) and cavalry sergeant Frank Troy (Terence Stamp). Half a century later, a new Gabriel (Matthias Schoenaerts) comes to work for Bathsheba (Carey Mulligan) after his new sheepdog drives his entire flock over a cliff in Thomas Vinterberg's 2015 retelling, which also sees him save her livestock, while her head is being turned by Boldwood (Michael Sheen) and Troy (Tom Sturridge).
A woman who has been taken to an asylum after being dragged from a lake shares her bed with a sheep in Jane Arden's searingly surreal study of female sexual guilt, The Other Side of the Underneath. But the emphasis is more firmly in the comic, as a ewe named Daisy pulls the wool over doctor Gene Wilder's eyes in Woody Allen's Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex * But Were Afraid to Ask (both 1972), as the GP becomes obsessed after a shepherd comes to his surgery requesting help in a case of alienated affections. A breeder on Craggy Island undergoes a similar crisis of confidence, as he prepares for the annual King of the Sheep competition in the 'Chirpy Burpy Cheap Sheep' episode of Father Ted (1996-98), which sees rumours of a predatory beast play on the nerves of the bookmakers' favourite, Chris. Meanwhile, Abraham Lincoln and the Three Stooges tend sheep in a Highland commune where nobody ages in Harmony Korine's scattershot satire on celebrity, Mister Lonely (2007).
Set in the scrubland hills of Sardinia, Paolo and Vittorio Taviani's Padre Padrone (1977) draws on the autobiography of Gavino Ledda, who was deprived of education from the age of six by his shepherd father so that he could learn the skills needed to protect the family flock. The sheep are somewhat incidental to the feud between two Welsh Marcher families that rumbles on across the generations in On the Black Hill (1987), Andrew Grieve's lowering adaptation of Bruce Chatwin's Booker Prize-winning novel. Icelander Grímur Hákonarson weaves a little bleak comedy into his tale of sibling rivalry, Rams (2015), which centres on grumpy old men Gummi (Sigurður Sigurjónsson) and Kiddi (Theódór Júlíusson), who have barely exchanged a word for 40 years and communicate solely by sheepdog notes and gunshots. However, when an outbreak of scrapie endangers their flocks, relations between the brothers take a strange new turn.
We head down to New Zealand for Jonathan King's Black Sheep (2006), which sees Nathan Meister return to the family farmstead for the first time since a tasteless practical joke had coincided with his father's death some 15 years earlier. Much to his dismay, however, brother Peter Feeney is conducting genetic experiments to turn woolly jumpers into ravenous flesh-eaters whose bite can turn a person into a half-sheep monster. Lambing season brings Romanian Gheorghe Ionescu (Alec Secareanu) to the Yorkshire farm that Johnny Saxby (Josh O'Connor) is running while his father, Martin (Ian Hart), recovers from a stroke. But, when the pair are sent to camp closer to the ewes in Francis Lee's God's Own Country (2017), they unleash pent-up passions for which neither is prepared.
It's off to the steppes of Mongolia for Byambasuren Davaa's The Cave of the Yellow Dog (2005), a companion piece to the equally engaging 2003 documentary, The Story of the Weeping Camel, that reveals what happens when six year-old Nansaa finds a black-and-white spotted puppy and defies her father by keeping Zochor, even though her parent is worried that a wild dog might attack his sheep. The spotlight falls on another nomadic tribe in Ben Hopkins's 37 Uses For a Dead Sheep (2006), which examines the daily rituals of the Pamir Kirghiz, a Central Asian people who have spent the last three decades living with their flocks in Eastern Turkey after having fled the Communist system that had sought to suppress their lifestyle and traditions.
One of the most engaging documentaries ever made about the countryside is Gideon Koppel's Sleep Furiously (2008), which alights upon the sights and sounds in the Welsh director's home community of Trefeurig, including sheep-shearing and the operation of the mobile library service. Harvard anthropologist Lucien Castaing-Taylor has captured the imagination of documentarists and audiences alike with his theories of Sensory Ethnography. But the appeal of Sweetgrass (2009), which he co-directed with his wife, Ilisa Barbash, lies in the timeless clash between Man and Nature, as a group of cowboys embark upon the last-ever sheep drive to the summer pasture through Montana's Absaroka-Beartooth mountains.
Business is booming for Wallace (Peter Sallis) and Gromit's window-cleaning round in Nick Park's A Close Shave (1995). But Wallace takes his eye off the ball when he devotes his time to inventing a knitting machine for wool shop keeper, Wendolene Ramsbottom (Anne Reid), and it's only Gromit's suspicions of snarling mutt Preston that provides the key clue as to the identity of the local sheep rustler. This Oscar-winning stop-motion classic introduced a character who would become an Aardman Animation stalwart in his own right. In addition to fronting his own TV series, Shaun the Sheep (2009-14) - episodes from which are available from Cinema Paradiso in lots of individual anthologies, along with Jay Grace's small-screen special, Shaun the Sheep: The Farmer's Llamas (2015) - Mossy Bottom Farm's very own fleecy superstar can also be seen in two feature films, Mark Burton's Shaun the Sheep Movie (2015) and Will Becher's Shaun the Sheep Movie: Farmageddon (2019).
The traditional tale of Little Red Riding Hood is mashed up in Cory Edward's Hoodwinked (2005), which features the voice of Chazz Palminteri as Woolworth the sheep. Halfway through his trek across South Africa to find water to relieve a drought, a zebra with only half his stripes wanders on to a farm and has a falling out with an eccentric Merino sheep named Nora in Anthony Silverston's Khumba (2013). Finally, desperate to regain the trust of his girlfriend, Bianca, after humiliating his rival to become the leader of the pack, a Russian wolf named Grey is transformed into a ram after drinking a magic potion and has three days to turn his world back upside down in Andrei Galat and Maxim Volkov's Sheep and Wolves (2017).
What is your favourite barnyard-animal film? To get into the spring mood, don't forget to check out Spring On Screen: Films to Watch This Season for a more in-depth overview of spring-themed films.
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